


Pick that Bottle Up

by KissTheBoy7



Series: Apollo Expired [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M, Mania, Suicide, enjolras just being completely unable to cope with life, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 07:45:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KissTheBoy7/pseuds/KissTheBoy7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras can't breathe anymore and Grantaire is too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pick that Bottle Up

**Author's Note:**

> I really, really, really needed to write this. Enjolras spiraling out of control is one of my favorite things.

It's stress that leads him to the medicine cabinet.

He fumbles, fingers once so sure now hasty and desperate as they scatter boxes and bottles, little wax papers from used bandaids-  _Grantaire never could pick up after himself properly_ \- fluttering to his feet. There has to be something- anything! Anything to make this stop.

His own breath is making him dizzy, the one shot of straight liquor that it had taken him to realize that he couldn't take Grantaire's way out.

It's ironic that it's him and not Grantaire, really, whose fingers close around a near-full jumbo bottle of Advil and again on an orange cylinder containing what he can only assume are Grantaire's meds.  _Fluoxetine hydrochloride_ the bottle reads, but he knows it's Prozac, and he casts it aside without a second glance. It's not his to take, it's Grantaire's lifeline and he needs it, even though Advil is probably too weak for the job and he's going to botch this, he's going to fail,  _he can't fail he can't-_

Failing is the only thing Enjolras has ever  _really_ been afraid of and lately, his life seems like one endless string of failures.

He can't take it anymore.

The pressure comes at him from all sides. Work piles up and he just can't seem to put a pen to paper. His laptop lies dusty on the counter, where Grantaire has cast it nervous, curious glances this past week but said nothing because he's Grantaire and he never faces these sorts of things head on, never dares criticize his  _dear Apollo_  and Julien doesn't even have the heart to tell him he's not a god anymore, he's so far from a god, he's so very  _mortal_ and he's dying, there's a paper due tomorrow morning, ten pages that he's not even ten words into because he just can't anymore, he's so far behind, nobody knows yet but they will, and he can't stand to see the look on their faces when they see how the mighty have fallen.

Thoughts running together into an endless blur, palms sweaty, he finds that bottle of liquor again that he so loathes the smell of and empties a handful of those little green gel capsules into his palm before downing them in one go. It's painful to swallow, even worse to force the bottle to his lips and drink, drink, drink...

Is this what Grantaire felt like? He's often wondered what compels his friend to drink like he does, because alcohol smells awful and tastes even worse, especially the stuff that R seems to prefer, but he can't imagine that even a cynic feels the way he does right now. So small and inadequate, so compressed and drowning, sinking, falling...

Perhaps if he hadn't put himself up at such an altitude in the first place, his impact wouldn't have hurt so much.

He gags on the fourth handful and pushes on, white knuckles around a brown neck, and everything is drowned under the sickening scent of Jack Daniels as the world begins to tilt and his stomach gurgles ominously. His throat feels permanently bruised, the phantom capsules stuck there making him swallow compulsively, over and over, he's  _choking stop it stop-!_

But he won't stop, has never listened to anyone's advice, especially his own. He's too stubborn for that and besides, he's usually right, always right, except for lately when he was right but had no way to put the words to it.

Really, he's incompetent, and he can see it if no one else could. He's so persuasive, so passionate, but for what? What is the purpose? He knows the purpose of course, but the end goal, the end of the road, it just gets further away, stretching ahead of him like some exhausting, zigzagging path until it disappears around the corner and the golden light that's been egging him on all along winks out of existence, along with his inspiration.

He's crying, when had he started crying? It's not like him to cry but no one is here to see him and even if they did he wonders if he would care. Shame burns in his gut.  _I can't do anything right, can I?_ He's disappointed everyone, they just don't know it yet. He's disappointed himself. _  
_

That's the worst feeling. Knowing, even when no one else does, the way he's let everybody down.

He finds that he can't face defeat. He's just like one of those martyrs, a bright flame of the revolution, extinguished all at once. All flames burn themselves out in the end. He's exhausted himself, used himself up and now he's of no use to himself, to anyone, at least the way he sees it. He's just so  _frustrated_ and there's no end, none in sight anymore, none at all maybe and god he just can't do it, what is it that Grantaire sees in him anyways?

Somehow he ends up on the floor and he's spilled bourbon everywhere but nothing matters anymore. His thoughts have risen up like an angry black tidal wave, his paper especially, words that he couldn't put to paper no matter how hard he tried twisting around him, suffocating-

Or maybe that's the hundred odd pills he just swallowed.

Or maybe it's the alcohol that seems to fill his mouth, foul liquid, he hated it more than anything else and Grantaire will be irate when he finds that he's drunk it all but maybe there's enough left for him if he can bear the thought of drinking it once he's prized it out of his cold dead hands.

The thought brings a hazy smile to his face, interrupted only when a violent spasm rocks his body and he half-lurches up to heave over the floor, head spinning, colors blurring, his eyes squeezing shut as hot tears burn tracks down his face and is that vomit, no, it's foam, that's disgusting-

In the distance he hears the sound of a key scraping in the lock, R's worried voice and footfalls approaching but he can't think anymore, just heave, agony spiking between his eyes and deep in his brain and down in his stomach, intestines twisted around and around, limp and rigid all at once and  _shit he might actually be dying._

It is Grantaire after all, hysterical as he falls to his knees beside his fallen deity, shaking him as though he can wake him up. Enjolras- no, Julien, that's what he's been reduced to isn't it, just Julien, just a mere mortal- doesn't respond, more because he can't than because he doesn't want to, as he suddenly realizes that he hasn't left a note and he desperately wants to explain that he's been pulled under and Grantaire can't save him now, he's just too far under.

There are more tears, soaking into his hair and his shirt as he's gathered into the other man's lap, but they're not his. He hears sirens and wonders when exactly he even had time to call an ambulance, had he? There are no answers anymore, no questions either, as he finally stops choking and lies limp in his arms, mind going blissfully blank.

The darkness closing in around him doesn't seem so accusatory anymore. It welcomes him, and he falls towards it with barely a whimper.

And the cynic rambles on, as though he hasn't noticed the spark gone out in the shell he's clutched to his chest that was once a man who burned so brightly. Julien only just manages to hone in on his final words before he disappears.

_"I love you, I love you, please don't leave me Apollo, please, I need you..."_

You don't need me, he thinks, his fingers twitching toward the bottle that's rolled away somewhere. The bathroom floor is a sticky mess and he spares a moment to scorn his own messy methods.

And then-

he's gone.


End file.
